


Keep Your Irritants Close

by misura



Category: Machine City Knights - Erin A. Bisson
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 00:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16923375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "Are you stalking me, or just following me around like a love-struck puppy?"





	Keep Your Irritants Close

Of course, for someone like Surya it wasn't enough that he'd more or less bullied her into moving in with him for close to two months (the better to rifle through her files and possessions), oh no - he had to go and pop up standing right at her shoulder while she was in the middle of some very delicate negotiations, too. To say that Astri was annoyed would be an understatement; to say that she was pissed off, accurate, but ultimately as futile as any objection she might raise.

"What do you think you are, my bodyguard?" Astri snorted. There _had_ been an undercurrent of potential violence to the conversation, the underCity no longer being quite the safe, sane place it had never been even before - well.

Good thing few people knew how close Astri'd been involved in _that_ affair.

Still, she'd never been one to come underprepared. If Surya imagined he might win her trust with some white knight act, he was in for a surprise.

_And how often do you think_ anyone's _managed to surprise the likes of Mithras Surya, hm? Better play this one real careful, Astri love._

Surya shrugged. "I was feeling a bit bored."

A likely story, given what Astri had seen of the goings-on at Firerose Tower during her stay there. Of course, when you were Surya, she supposed it was just possible that finding new and exciting ways to keep an eye on people and manipulate their lives got to be a little ... routine-like.

"Keeping you entertained is not in my job description." Not that what Astri did for a living _had_ anything so official as a job description, she didn't think. They sure weren't offering courses for it at the Uni, last time she'd swung by for a quick visit to a professor who doubled as a contact between those with an interest in acquiring a certain type of artifacts and those with an interest in selling the same.

(Last she'd heard, he'd gotten a bit too greedy, trying to turn a bit of extra profit by offering the same object to two collectors. The one who'd gotten the fake had not, alas, been inclined to sue or file an official complaint, and so Astri'd been forced to find herself a new fence.)

"I wasn't aware that you were still in my employment," Surya said.

Astri wistfully stared in the direction to which her would-be buyers had beaten a retreat. "I'm not. It's a manner of speech. As you know perfectly well. And what do you mean: still?"

"For a given definition of partners, we worked together for a while, and well enough, I think." Surya smirked, as if this was anything other than an innocuous statement of fact.

_Hardly innocuous._ Astri did not want to consider what would happen to her reputation if word ever got out that she'd partnered with Surya - without ripping him off in a way that was a bit more personal than obtaining an onyx clearance. Teaming up for the good of the city sounded nice and fine, sure - to regular, normal people. "Are you stalking me, or just following me around like a love-struck puppy?"

"If those are my only two options, I'd prefer stalking." Surya bared his teeth.

Astri considered. _Coincidence? Nope, don't think so._ "You put a tracking device on me?"

"It seemed less effort."

_Eugh._ Now that she knew, she could get rid of it easily enough. It'd cost her, though, and the economy was still very much recovering from what had happened after certain events Astri was determined to pretend she hadn't witnessed with her own eyes. "Why?"

Surya smiled. "When people live under my roof, I feel a certain responsibility for their behavior."

Fair enough, more or less, Astri supposed. Not that she saw any need to say so out loud, and besides, she'd moved out as soon as things had calmed down a bit. She'd been a good house guest, too, never sticking her nose where it didn't belong, never sneaking a peek into rooms Surya had informed her were off-limits. _So what do you want? A cookie?_

"Should I be worried?" She should definitely have known better than to expect her departure to be the end of things. Surya was nothing if not persistent.

Of course, Surya was also a busy, busy man. Astri'd counted on that being enough to get him off her back, to distract him while she quietly slipped back into the obscurity of her old life, where Surya was very near a legend, someone everyone had heard stories about and hardly anyone had met in person - at least not anyone still around and free to tell the tale ...

"About them? I doubt they'll give you any trouble." _If they know what's good for them,_ went unspoken. 

Astri glared. "About _you_."

"I didn't know you cared." Surya's lips curved. "I'm not sure whether to feel touched or insulted."

"If by 'care' you mean 'want to strangle you right now'. I'm trying to rebuild my life here. What did I ever do to give you the impression I needed you to look out for me?"

Surya arched an eyebrow. "What happened to me stalking you?"

"Too unlikely," Astri declared. "Your idea of romance probably involves poetry. And roses. And annoying people. You don't have the patience to be a stalker, though."

"I don't think that I have ever given someone flowers in my life. If you knew the effort that goes into growing them, you'd know better than to suspect me of such ... waste."

"Ah." Astri'd enjoyed the - might as well call it a 'garden' she supposed, in Firerose Tower. A piece of nature and beauty amidst the servers and cables. "Right."

"As to poetry, hardly."

"Embarrassed, huh?" Astri asked. "Bad experience? I bet there's a story there." Not one she was likely to waste the time and effort on finding out about, oh no, but then, that was hardly the point now, was it?

"I do think it's interesting that you appear to consider annoying people romantic. Of course, it would be rather a stretch to say you annoy me - at best, you're a mild irritant."

Tragically, that was probably true. Surya would ruin her life and her career, but it wouldn't be out of any sense of personal malice he bore her, oh no. Just Surya being Surya. Checking to-do things off his list.

"I wish I could say the reverse is also true," Astri said. "But to be honest, you're a huge, enormous pain in the ass, and I'd love for you to leave me alone and never be graced with your presence ever again." She should be so lucky.

To be fair, she might miss him a little. Eventually. Absence making the heart grow fonder, and all that.

"If you're trying to hurt my feelings, try harder," Surya said. "Drink?"

"After what happened last time I let you buy me a drink? Do I look like that much of an idiot to you?"

True, last time hadn't been all bad. The sex had been damn good, in fact - the parts she could remember, anyway. But then she'd woken up with a hang-over in a strange room, and Surya'd poured her a cup of coffee before suggesting that what with things being as they were, perhaps she might find it to her profit to spend some time in a secure location - strictly temporarily, of course.

_Let's try not to do that again, shall we?_

"Dinner, then," Surya said, without even the courtesy of making it sound like a question.

Then again, not like a simple dinner was going to impair her judgment. It'd just be food - good, _expensive_ food, knowing Surya. So what if the company was annoying? Not like she was likely to get a better offer within the next few hours, and a girl did get tired of her own company sometimes.

"Fine," Astri said. "Dinner. You can catch me up on what the others have been up to."

"That should get us past the soup, at least."

"No poetry at all, though?" Astri prodded. "Never?"

Surya's eyes gleamed. "Try me after half a bottle of wine or so. If you dare."

_And who'll have been drinking the other half, eh?_ Not a particularly subtle trap; she'd have to be an idiot to fall for it. "Don't think I'm _that_ curious."

"Your loss. Or gain, probably." Surya grinned. "I've been told it really is quite horrible."

He knew her entirely too well. _If I could get a recording ..._ Not that she'd be foolish enough to try blackmail or the like, but simply having it - oh yes. Worth taking more than a few risks. What was the worst that could happen, anyway? _Nothing that hasn't happened before, and here you are, safe and sound, if arguably somewhat less than sane._

"My gain indeed, then," Astri said, tone and expression casual, and not thinking for a moment that she was fooling anyone. "So where are we going?"


End file.
